Expected
by Anansay
Summary: He shouldn't have been surprised, really.


He shouldn't be that surprised, really. It's not like he knew it'd be any different. _Better to burn up, then to fade away._ He'd heard it before, and thought it quite appropriate for himself. His own little eulogy, in fact. He just never thought it'd be so fucking _soon_.

Scratch that. He'd been expecting it from day one. Only, somewhere along the line, he'd forgotten it, put it aside, as something like Life petered in and took over. Waking up every morning ceased to be a chore and the killing ceased to be glorious. Waking up was something neutral and the killing was . . . just something he did and didn't think about it.

Of course, those things never really stayed the same. _Change is the only constant in life._ He knew that. He did. His training had closely mirrored his life so he'd passed with flying colours and barely cracked open a book, if there'd been books to crack open. As it was, it was only imitation and surpassing expectation and he'd been quietly titled 'Turk' and set up on missions with the other Turks. No fanfare. No celebration. No drinking fine wines and fucking fine women. He's slid seamlessly into this life and it proved much more lucrative than his previous existence of scraping by and killing when he had to. Now, he had weapons and instruments at his disposal, as long as he treated them with respect and cleaned them regularly. Dried blood was a bitch to get out.

Reno wondered if he'd have to get this blood out of his suit, if there'd be a tomorrow to get some washing done. If he'd be the one to wash it, or . . . Did ShinRa even _have _people who washed the suits of dead Turks? Or did they just burn them along with the body? Reno didn't know. And he didn't care.

It was pouring out of him quickly, pooling at his sides, all warm and sticky, soaking through before it could pour down, but still pooling, seeping from saturated cloth. He knew medical protocol dictated pressure to a wound to slow the bleeding but Reno also knew this wound was far too big for his one good hand and he could already feel his strength leaving alongside his blood.

The brick wall at his back was painfully hard and bumpy, tiny bumps jagging into his back. He'd move, but he'd already tried that and it only succeeded in blinding him with sudden sharp pain and he'd grunted, something protocol strongly opposed. _We work together, we die alone. You do NOT bring anyone else down with you._

His bad hand was a mangled piece of flapping flesh, bone visible through smears of blood. His rod-hand, rod blown from it and hand trying to follow, apparently. It lay limply by his side, a throbbing piece of useless flesh, and beginning to stick to the ground. He could move his toes without pain and this Reno did, anything to keep his mind from his hand and his side. His head was pounding in league with his heart, and he knew he had to calm down or lose more blood too quickly. It didn't serve anyone if he panicked and forced the blood from his body too quickly.

It was a solo mission—recon. Simple. But not for Reno. Not when he'd cursed and brought attention to himself and initiated gunfire of such grand proportion, it made Meteor seem like falling stars. At least to Reno's fuzzy memory. There was nothing to do but run, and hopefully hide. But where to hide in a warehouse with mazes of too-high crates of illegal weapons? These people knew the crates; Reno had not. They'd found him, of course, rod out, sparking and hungry. Bullets shot the rod from his hand, destroying precious flesh. Bullets plunged into his side, ripping flesh wide open. They went in his legs, disabling him as he went down. His head hit the wall and then there was blackness.

Only the blackness didn't stay and now Reno was sitting in a pile of his own blood, spitting up blood, still cursing. They'd left him apparently, thinking they'd killed him. Only Reno was a Turk and it's not so easy to kill a Turk and maybe it had something to do with the mako in his body but Reno didn't think even mako could fill in so many bullet holes. He was due back at headquarters—he couldn't check his watch; it was a mangled mess on the wrist of his mangled hand.

His cell phone.

Moving slowly and painfully and grunting, groaning and cursing the entire time, Reno finally fished it from his inner pocket, flipped it open and was greeted by the luscious lips of Glenda the Glorious pouting at him. He pressed a number, heard the rings and let it rest on his thigh. The tinny voice of Tseng answered and Reno began coughing. When the spasms finally passed, he whispered that the mission was a failure.

What do you mean, Tseng wanted to know. In the background, even less distinct, were other voices and Reno could imagine Rude and Elena sitting forward in the seats.

"Failed, man, bad." Reno coughed, and wiped the blood from the phone.

"Reno—where are you?"

"Crates."

"What the hell do you mean 'crates'?"

"Warehouse."

"We're coming—"

"No—too late."

Elena sputtered a shocked retort.

There was noise on the phone, a scuffling, and suddenly it was different sound, more open. "Reno, partner," Rude said, "shut the fuck up and hold on." Firm, quiet tones, and Reno knew Rude meant business. He laughed. "Too late, partner. Time's up, yo."

"Fuck you."

"Still too late, unless you're into necro, or shit like that."

A door slammed. "Reno," Elena said, "they're gone. Hold on, k? Just . . . yeah, hold on."

Elena's soft non-Turk voice was like angels come to visit Reno and he smiled softly. "'lena . . . the only woman in the Turks . . . how the fuck did you make it with your soft heart . . .?"

"Reno, you're getting soft. Quit that. You're scaring me. Talk about my boobs, k? I'm . . . uh, not wearing a bra today . . ."

Boobs . . . and Reno laughed. He couldn't feel his cock or balls, his hand was a glob of pain. His side was slashing something fierce with tiny needles all over the place. His legs were two long spears of agony. Only his toes, those tiny little wee things, didn't hurt. "Nice, Elena," he said, "but I don't think I have a dick anymore."

A gasp. "Oh gods . . ."

"Quit it," he told her. "We all knew—" cough, "—all knew this is the end. For all of us . . . sometime or another."

Then he heard it—engine, then footsteps, quiet voices. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes and smiled. On the phone Elena was still giving him hell but the sound was dimming, growing flat.

**THE END**


End file.
